16 INTRODUCTION. 
it is only from this quarter that much improvement, in our 
present state of knowledge, can be expected. Truth, how- 
ever, obliges us to admit that gardening has been most 
successfully practiced when. treated as an empirical art, 
Few of those who are minutely conversant with its numer- 
ous manipulations have undergone such an intellectual 
training as to enable them to wield general principles with 
effect. Many who are not inexpert or unsuccessful while 
they follow the routine practice (a practice be it remem- 
bered, founded on long experience, and close observation), 
egregiously fail when, with imperfect information, or ill- 
advised ingenuity, they endeavor to strike out new paths 
for themselves. ‘The object of ithe art, too, limits the ap- 
plication of the deductions of science. Its whole business 
consists in the imitation of Nature, whose processes may 
indeed be, in some measure, originated, as when a seed is 
inserted in the ground, or modified, as in the artificial 
training of fruit-trees, but which may not: be entirely con- 
trolled, much less counteracted, The principle of vege- 
table life will not endure interference beyond a certain point, 
and our theoretical views should be so directed as to inter- 
fere with it as little as possible. Observation and experi- 
ment are the grand means by which the art has arrived at 
its present state of advancement: at the same time, it is 
obvious: that an enlarged acquaintance with science will 
aid us in imitating the processes of nature, will guide the 
hand of experiment, suggest contrivances, and enable us 
to guard against error; and, above all, will tend to dispel 
those prejudices which practitioners in the empirical arts 
are so prone to cherish. 
Gardening, Mr. Walpole observes, was probably one of 
the first arts which succeeded to that of building houses, 
and naturally attended property and individual possession. 
